Final Presentation

For my last speech for presentation class and the major project for persuasion class I had to give a persuasive speech. My topic was "can sexual orientation be changed?" It is important to note that we were given a list of 15 topics oh which, my topic was the most personal. This made it easier to create a presentation.

Below is my script for the speech. The two teachers evaluating this performance told me I should publish it.

“Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you. You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don’t know what it is. You have only covered up the mystery with a label.” Eckhart Tolle author of “A New Earth” penned these words.

Gender, sexual orientation. Those words are just labels. They help our mind map different situations so we can attempt to understand our word. Gender is not the biological parts beneath your clothing. Gender is how your mind and heart function to collaborate with your identity. Sexual orientation isn’t just about who you sleep with or who you want to sleep with.

Some believe that sexuality is innate, inflexible and ingrained in our genetic make up. Others believe that sexuality is a choice, flexible and the result of environmental factors. Then there’s a third group. This group feels that sexuality is a combination of environmental factors and biological factors. When they change those factors within change. This is the basis for my arguments. There are three sides in this triangle. There is so much grey space in this discussion that even after this presentation, you still might be confused to which side your heart beats on.

I am a faithful member in the third party. I believe that sexuality can change, that it is not a choice, but the result of environmental and biological factors that change. You are until you aren’t. You aren’t till you are. Sexuality can change with the introduction of new information within the environment. My truth about sexuality is that sexuality can change. You can wake up one morning in a moment of clarity after weeks and months of uncertainty able to identify what has been on your mind. According to the L Word television show “sexuality is fluid, whether your gay, straight, or bisexual you just go with the flow” (the L Word: Episode 1.03, Let’s Do It, air date: January 25th 2004).

How can I possibly believe this? Because I’ve watched friends and loved ones wrestle with the concept of identity. I know that people in this room have wondered, “where do I fit in?”. If you take one step outside this classroom door, you’re walking into a place where hundreds of others are asking that same question. “Do I fit in? Who am I?

Throughout the course of life, this question will change. It might turn into, Am I happy? Should I have picked a different path? Or is he or she, right for me?” But how will you know the answer? Just listen to your heart. It won’t ever steer you wrong. Listen to what makes your heart beat. And you’ll find your way.

Even if you find yourself in a situation you never imagined, just take in the moment. Let this new information wash over you. Let your mind process it. Let your heart beat, then listen to what it says.

Your beliefs, your core values, and society tells you how you should behave in any situation. How would you react if you found yourself in bed with someone of the same gender? With no idea on how that happened? Would you freak out? Would you run out before the person noticed you there? Or would you take a moment to take in what lead you to that moment?

Introducing new information into your beliefs and core values can have a huge impact on you. It might feel like your world is spiraling out of control, or the planets out of alignment. The new information sorted into your brain will trickle down to your mouth. One day you will say a phrase out loud that you can’t take back. But all along your heart knew what you head was going to say aloud. “I’m attracted to blank.”

It doesn’t matter which word you say aloud, gay, straight, bi, pansexual. Because your sexual orientation just changed.

At the age of sixteen you might say “I like men.”. and then at 36, something has changed within you and you say “I like women”. Its happened many times before. Life is happy and things are going well. Then something changes within you and you say that phrase out loud.

There are so many factors that can impact this change. If your beliefs change, then you do. Your heart does.

Society can also play a role. In the last thirty years, society has changed so much. Our discussion of sexuality has changed along with it. Thirty years ago, doctors were locking people who weren’t heterosexual up in mental institutions, performing lobotomies and promoting conversion therapy.

Another group of people feel that sexuality can change. There is a movement in very conservative churches in the United States and Canada who believe that sexuality can be changed. They believe that any relations between same sex partners can be changed to relations between man and woman. This movement is called the Ex-Gay Movement and has roots in many groups such as Focus on the Family, and Love Won Out (http://www.unmaskactivists.org/mediaresources.htm) . These groups feel that homosexuality is an illness. With enough therapy and re-training, each person can overcome this illness.

The principles that support their information is called heterosexism. This concept believes that each human is heterosexual. The principle of heterosexism promotes that relations between only man and woman are moral and normal.. But with the legalizing of same sex marriage, Canadian society has embraced homosexuality and rejected heterosexism.

I am all for freedom of speech. These ex-gay movement groups are entitled to their opinions. However, in 2000 the American Psychiatric Association updated their position statement “some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however {we believe that} sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime” (http://www.aglp.org/pages/cfactsheets.html#Anchor-Gay-14210) . In summarizing, you don’t just wake up one day and that you want to sleep with someone of the same gender. It can take one lifetime to listen to what your heart is telling you, and another lifetime to believe it and another lifetime to act on it.

Before I finish this afternoon, I want to instill a few words of wisdom. If you take anything from today, it should be that sexuality is a part of you. Part of your personality. Part of your identity. It is not everything about you. And it can change. As long as this change comes from within and isn’t a forced decision from an outside influence.
Labels are just words Labels are for jam jars, jeans and genetic material but not for people. Thank you.

So. That was the persuasive speech. I'm still processing how it went. I'm slow like that sometimes. But for two days after this was given, my grasp on the English language was sorely lacking. It has since returned.